Dal Khalsa holds a Sikh Raj seminar at Amritsar

Who: Dal Khalsa, a pro-freedom Sikh organisation. Sikh Siyasat News names Paramjit Singh Mand, Dal Khalsa's acting president, and Panth Sewak Bhai Daljit Singh Bittu as speakers, and says Panthic leaders, Sikh scholars and prominent community members attended. A third recording on the same site is headlined as a speech of Bhai Ajmer Singh, but the text under it credits Bhai Daljit Singh Bittu, so that page does not settle which of the two it carries.

What: The seminar marked 39 years since 29 April 1986, when the five-member Panthic Committee named by the Sarbat Khalsa issued the Declaration of Khalistan from inside the Sri Darbar Sahib complex. Its question was less whether Sikh sovereignty should exist than what a Sikh state would stand for. Mand answered what Sikh Siyasat calls frequently asked questions about Sikh Raj, in a speech the site posted in full on 8 May 2025. Bittu spoke on the significance of the 1986 declaration and on the basis of the Khalsa's claim to sovereignty, the Patshahi Dawa. He set out the principles of Sarbat da Bhala, Beghampura, Halemi Raj and Khalsa ji ke bol-bale, and turned to the changing world order. He also spoke about the India-Pakistan crisis that followed the Pahalgam attack of 22 April 2025, when India put the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, and about the standing of Sikhs in Punjab, across India and abroad.

Where: Bhai Gurdas Hall, Amritsar.

Why it mattered: The seminar fell a week after Pahalgam and eight days before India struck Pakistan on 7 May, so Sikh sovereignty was discussed against a border war that Punjab would feel first. A Dal Khalsa march for the anniversary of Operation Blue Star, reported by The Tribune on 6 June 2025, carried banners urging both countries to end hostilities and open the borders for trade and pilgrimage, and its political affairs secretary, Kanwar Pal Singh, said the people of Punjab do not want war. A year later, on 29 April 2026, Dal Khalsa and four other organisations marched to Sri Akal Takht Sahib for the 40th anniversary and released a policy document outside the Takht Secretariat, framed on the ideal of Sarbat da Bhala.